How Do I Begin?

THE FIRST STEP

Review the Policies and Procedures for Addressing Sexual Misconduct booklet that is found on the diocesan website covdio.org/safe-environment. Print out the Code of Conduct for the diocese so you are familiar with the rules and regulations required.

Go to your parish, school, or institution office. Introduce yourself to the VIRTUS coordinator for each location where you are volunteering or are employed. Request the following two forms 1) 2020 Acceptance Form for the Policies and Procedures for Addressing Sexual Misconduct. 2) Employee/Volunteer Application used for reference and background check verification.

Fill out the two forms with your full legal name along with a legible copy of your current driver’s license or state identification card and leave them with the person in charge to give to your Virtus coordinator to process through the Diocese. These forms and a copy of your driver’s license or state identification card will need to be updated every five years with all locations listed once your account is activated.

REGISTERING ON-LINE- “Registering” means opening an account at www.virtusonline.org.  You may only open ONE account.  If you know that you already have an account, you may get your id and password by clicking on “Forgot your Password” on the first screen.

Go to www.virtusonline.org, Click on the First Time Registrant link in the left green area of the page. Begin the registration process.

Select Covington, KY (Diocese) in the dropdown list. Create your USER ID. Create a password that has a minimum of eight letters/characters. Make a notation of these somewhere. You will need them every time you access Virtus. Do not use your email address as your user id. User IDs are case sensitive so, if you have a printer, it’s good to print a copy now for yourself.

Your name needs to be entered as your FULL legal name as it appears on your driver’s license. There is a separate box for suffixes such as Jr, Sr, II and III etc. If you use a nickname, please enter it in the appropriate nickname box.

Continue filling out your information. Select the Primary location that handled your paperwork. If you work for the Diocese, select your place of employment as the Primary location and where you volunteer as an additional location. If you volunteer at your home parish and at a school, please select the home parish as your primary location.  You may select more than one secondary location. Any changes to your list of locations that may need to be made should be sent to your primary location for assistance.

Select your role, title, or function within the Diocese. If you wish to be a Volunteer, select Volunteer. Continue your registration.  If you are a coach, catechist, scout leader, Knights of Columbus, St. Vincent de Paul Society, contracted janitor, please select that option.

Select Yes or No when you get to the page about attending a session. If no, select the session you wish to attend. If yes, you have already attended a session in the Diocese of Covington, check mark the box. If you attended another Diocese, please give that information to your primary location.

After you see “Thank you for registering with VIRTUS Online”, click on “Begin Background Check” and follow the prompts.

For security reasons, you cannot use a cell phone, landline phone, kindle, or tablet to enter a background check.

The standard cost for a background check through Selection.com (Fastrax) is $50. If you have lived in states other than Kentucky, Ohio, or Indiana, you may have additional fees.  Unfortunately, the final cost cannot be determined until the background check is completed. You will receive a receipt following its completion. Please contact the Safe Environment Office if you have questions.

If you do not want to use a credit card for your background check, contact your primary location. You may purchase a “token” for $50 that enables you to enter the token number in place of a credit card number.  It takes approximately two days for a background check to be marked “complete”. If your background says “pending,” that means it is being processed. Please do not re-enter your information and pay another fee but keep checking your status.

Your account will not be activated until all your paperwork has been processed, Virtus training approved, and your Selection background check is completed. Please do not register a second time. You will receive an email from [email protected] that your account is activated.

REGISTERING WITHOUT SIGNING UP FOR A CLASS

It is important that you register immediately whether you select a class or not so that your paperwork can be processed.

On the page that asks you to sign up for a class, scroll to the bottom and click on “submit registration”.

The system will then say, “You did not select a training session. Do you want to select a training session at this time?  Say “NO”.

The system will then say, “If you do not select a session now and are required to attend one, you will need to come back to this site, log in and select a session at a later date.” Say, “Okay”.

The system will tell you that you have successfully registered.

CHANGING A CLASS CHOICE

If you need to change a training session that you have previously chosen, enter your user id and password.

1. Current Training Tab – Register for an upcoming session will be underlined. Click here, the next screen under the posting of your VIRTUS training you originally selected, once you click here the list of available VIRTUS trainings will pop up for you to choose from.
2. Choose from the dropdown list the training of your choice.

Protecting God’s Children for Adults training will be updated every five years through a module on your activated account.

YOUR ACCOUNT IS ACTIVE

Your account is active after (1) the Policies and Procedures for Addressing Sexual Misconduct Acceptance Form is recorded, (2) your background check has been processed and completed (3) your class attendance has been verified.

You will receive an email from VIRTUS with your user id when your account is open.  Be sure that your spam blocker is setup to accept emails from [email protected] . Now you will be ready to start processing your bulletins.  Bulletins are posted on the first Sunday of each month on your VIRTUS account. To stay in compliance, process each bulletin within 30 days. Due dates will be published in the Messenger and in parish bulletins, school newsletters, etc.

If you go beyond 30 days, your Training Bulletin Tab will turn red, letting your “locations” know that you are not currently volunteering.  If for some reason, you have fallen behind 1 or 2 bulletins, have a valid reason why your account is in suspension and you need to currently volunteer, you make the request through your school, parish, or agency. Once your account is unsuspended your Training Bulletin Tab will be red with “Read the Bulletin” underlined. Click on this link to open your training bulletin history that will show which bulletin(s) needs to be read and updated. If your account has 12 or more outstanding bulletins, it will be inactivated. You will not be able to volunteer or be employed. To be reactivated reach out to your primary or any location listed on your account. You will need to re-process your Selection background check.

Please register only ONCE.  Opening more than one account causes confusion and keeps you from remaining compliant.

Go to www.virtusonline.org, enter user id and password. Click on My Info to update your contact, email, or physical address. To update locations, reach out to your primary location’s VIRTUS coordinator which is listed under the Contact Tab.

After the initial background check, a Search America background check will automatically run three times per year as long as you remain “active” in VIRTUS. Please notify your primary location when you wish to become “inactive.”

Your background check will need re-processed every five years.

If you have any questions, please contact Marylu Steffen at [email protected] or by phone at 859-392-1565.